England head coach Gareth Southgate has sent a message to the England fans ahead of their Nations League match with Germany at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday. according to Southgate, English fans should not embarrass themselves in Germany.
The last time the two nations met in Germany, England fans were criticized for singing World War 11 songs. What has made this fixture more intriguing is that it coincides with the day before the anniversary of the D- day.
With over 3500 English fans already bought tickets for Tuesday’s game at the Allianz Arena and more fans are expected to go to Germany without tickets.
What did Gareth Southgate say?
Speaking ahead of Tuesday’s game at the Allianz Arena. Southgate said: “I think we know because of the landscape at the moment, that the spotlight is going to be on.
“So we all want to be coming away talking about a brilliant night, good football, and a stunning atmosphere. We can only ask that’s what our supporters deliver.
“Crowd trouble has an impact on the players. Staff are working on things detracting from the main part of their job, you are embarrassed when you hear about it, because you know it’s a representation of your country.
“I think we can only give the correct messages, it’s then you’ve got to rely on people behaving themselves.
“We have supporters from all parts of the country who travel brilliantly and leave foreign countries with a great feeling about England and English supporters.
“We also know that there have always been others that do it a different way, and that’s been the same for 40-odd years.”
With the World Cup set to start in five months, England has no friendly matches before their first World Cup group game on the 21 November against Iran.
However, Gareth Southgate believes that England has to use these games to experiment with his squad.
Southgate added: “I knew going into this block of four games that you run the risk of some results that might hurt.
“But I have to look at the bigger picture and ignore the inevitable that comes with defeats and take what I will learn from it going into Qatar.
“We have not got friendlies to try it so we have to do it in these games. We are trying to find a balance of changes, to find out about people because we have only had two matches in the last six months and you know that across the four games we have to balance minutes.
“We have got a lot of players, particularly at the back, who is coming back from injuries with only one league game at the end of the season. And some players we need to know more about. Of course, the idea is to develop players, play well, and win games.
“You have to accept that if you are to try to do the first part, then there is a risk on some of the other bits and yes, that is a difficult balance.
“We do not have a 38-game league where you are working with the players all of the time so if I don’t try some of the players in these sorts of games we either flog the team which has been more consistent and we know all about, and they fade at the end of these four games anyway, or we try to balance it by putting some players in with some players with experience around them which hopefully gives them the best chance to succeed.”
